Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 22:34:14 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Mike Meyer" <mwm@mired.org>, "Duke Normandin" <01031149@3web.net> Cc: <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: BSDi Acquired by Embedded Computing Firm Wind River Message-ID: <001501c0c312$35dbd180$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <15061.13268.347161.47426@guru.mired.org>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Mike Meyer >The difference is that the FreeBSD client will be more stable, >reliable, and deliver better bang/buck. Having helped run some fairly >large Unix installations, I'd say that Ted's characterization of Unix >workstations is flawed. The only real difference between using Unix on >the desktop - even FreeBSD - and using Windows is the applications >selections. > But that _was_ my point. Desktop systems are primariarly concerned with data presentation, whether you do this in the OS or in an application program is inconsequential, the main issue is that the majority of the system's CPU is devoted to formatting the data so that a human can more readily accept it. Even in a large Unix installation where the majority of Unix workstations are doing a lot of application code processing on the workstation, the thrust of the workstation is to present data to the end user, whereas the thrust of the server is to present data to the network. I am myself somewhat unhappy with current use of the term "workstation" Time was that an honest-to-God workstation was a Unix system running a non-Intel CPU (usually) , but about 5 years ago the Wintel marketing people grabbed onto the term and started slapping it onto PC's running Windows NT. People today seem to think that a workstation is some sort of hopped-up desktop, but that's a perversion of the meaning of the original term. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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